Survivor's Guilt
by Demica Webb Kempton
Summary: Set after the 'Eliminate Killbane' Ending. The Boss had a choice. He made the wrong one.


Disclaimer: I don't own Saints Row

Summary: Set after the 'Eliminate Killbane' Ending. The Daedalus is destroyed, Cyrus is dead and Steelport is now a city-state. The Boss of the Saints now has to deal with the something that has been in the back of his mind since he snapped Killbane's neck.

Survivor's Guilt

He had kept it together for the sake of the crew. He had to keep himself pulled together for all of them. They had to see him as the hard, psychopathic leader who would keep them all safe and take down their rivals. He had to keep them all alive.

He thought he had time.

He had grabbed the first car that was not blown to scrap and had drove. He had drove in the wrong direction. He drove the wrong damn way!

He let Dex get away in that damn plane way back when. What was he thinking? He didn't have some agenda with Killbane, he just wanted to kill the bastard. Why though? He'd already pulled off the mask, what did it matter now? Killbane had lost his mask, his stupid legacy. Without his mask he was nothing, he may as well have been dead. The Boss just helped with that when he should have been somewhere else.

The memory of the events were still replaying in his mind. Why didn't he listen to Pierce? Why didn't he go to that monument?

"_I can't let him win! _We_ can't let him win!"_ They had taken his mask already. Wasn't Angel satisfied with that?

"_You can't let our girl die." _For once Pierce was right and he didn't listen. He let their girl die. He let them all die.

In the wreckage of the Saint's Penthouse he looked out at the half-broken city. That VTOL that had crashed was still there. No one had been to the Penthouse since the fights broke out. Everything was in shambles. Newly broken bottles of beer were piling up near a wall after each one was finished. The Boss' suit was only dirty due to the fact he was sitting in ashes and soot. He had to keep up appearances for the crew. Not that he had been going outside.

Pale blue eyes scanned the room blankly. He wasn't absorbing anything bar alcohol. In his head he could hear the voices of the people he used to roll with and the people who caused their deaths.

He heard Lin. He wished he got to know her better. Despite all of the arguing Gat spoke well of her. He could still remember the gunshot wounds the pair had received before being stuffed into the trunk of Lin's Voxel and being left for dead. He did _everything_ he could to save her. He even pulled her body out of the trunk so that there would be a body to bury. He stayed with her until she passed away. Then he sought blood.

It was his fault that Carlos died. He thought the Brotherhood were pushovers, he thought Carlos could handle them. That stupid bitch Jessica tied him up and let those thugs drag him through the streets. The Boss' blood ran cold when he recalled driving through Stilwater, seeing the trail of blood on the streets. It turned to ice when he stopped that truck and ran to the boy, his face torn off by the roads. They both knew he wouldn't make it. He took the body with him. He wanted to know that Carlos would have a proper burial.

He beat Jessica around a bit when he lost the police after kidnapping her. He said nothing to her, only beating her out of anger before leaving her car to be crushed by her boyfriend. He wanted to at least rough her up a bit in revenge for Carlos' death.

Aisha's death was too soon after that. The reason he had asked Gat to see her was because he wasn't used to dealing with deaths close to him. He thought they'd all pull through. He should have known better, especially after Lin.

Seeing her headless body while dragging Gat out of her home was horrific. Dealing with Gat's delusional pleas to save her was tipping him over. Then there was the funeral. That little bastard could not even let them bury her in peace. He remembered dragging the little punk to Gat, allowing him to do whatever the Hell he wanted to the prick. Aisha was always Gat's girl and it was for him to exact revenge, not the Boss.

He did not believe Gat was dead. He still did not believe he was dead. No matter what any of the Saints or Syndicate said Gat must have been alive. He cheated death, that's what he did. The Boss still had to keep it together for Pierce and Shaundi. He always had the feeling that Shaundi knew he was taking it rough, woman's intuition or something like that. He just wished he listened to her and went back to get Gat, or at least hold off the Syndicate while he flew them back to Stilwater.

Shaundi and Viola...

It was his fault they died.

Sitting amongst that wreckage, staring blankly ahead, Killbane's body beneath his, fire heating his back unpleasantly. He could see the countdown in his head. He counted down the last ten seconds, unable to do a thing. The Leader of the Saints was, once again, helpless to save his friends.

The numbers counted down in his head...

_Three..._

_Two..._

_One..._

He heard the explosion faintly from where he was. He stood up, staring at the smoking wreckage.

There would be no bodies to bury this time.

He could not forgive himself for this. Not when he had a choice. He made the wrong one. He just _didn't learn_.

"Hey Boss...?" Pierce's voice was uncertain. It was the first time he heard him speak since they talked over the phone about Shaundi's memorial. He was drunk and the Boss, in all honesty, was glad. It meant he could lower his guard without anyone remembering about it later. He never let the floodgates open though, never in front of anyone. There was a time and place for him to do that and it was _not_ in front of his gang.

He didn't move, still as a statue, as Pierce, Kinzie, Oleg, Zimos and Angel came into his line of vision. He actually thought Pierce was furious at him for letting Shaundi die, he was certainly furious at himself.

"I, uh... brought pancakes?" Kinzie spoke softly, uncertainly, as she set down the little box filled with what was now her favourite thing to eat. The Boss took a drink from the bottle he had in his hand.

The whole situation was awkward for the lieutenants, as none had seen their Boss in such a state. The silence was unsettling, as though he was suddenly going to pull the gun and shoot everyone in the room. Then he just disappeared without a word, not answering his phone to anyone. Not even Zimos, with all his savvy about Steelport, could locate the Boss. It was Kinzie's hacking that found him, when she had gotten out of her flustered panic about losing the Boss. She was glad he didn't take her advice on throwing out his phone.

The had talked to Pierce about the best way to handle their Boss. Like them, however, he had no experience. He recalled when Carlos died it was Gat who dealt with, and Shaundi dealt with him after Aisha died and Gat was in hospital. So they decided they all had to go.

No one wanted to be the first to talk though. The Boss continued to drink, making some of his Lieutenants flinch when he stood and threw the bottle at the wall before sitting down and taking another. All with a steady calmness that put them all on edge. Pierce checked around in case his Boss' pistols were on him. They were not.

"So uh, Boss," Pierce began. "We were kind of wondering if, ya know, you wanted to come down for Pub Trivia night?" He was met with silence. It felt as though the Saints' Leader was staring right through them all.

"The Syndicate is destroyed," Oleg offered. "Surely you would believe you deserve a reward, yes?" Kinzie could see, from her training in the FBI to read people (it wasn't her strong suit), that in her Boss' eyes was a sudden burning anger that wasn't there before.

"Killbane is gone," Angel stated. "You've done what you came here to do. You did the right thing." The tone of Angel's voice made the Boss' blood turn cold. Kinzie made the right choice in backing off because Zimos, who was near Angel, just narrowly escaped the sudden beer bottle that was aimed for the wrestler's head.

"The right choice?" The Boss parroted in a cold, mocking and cruel way. He stood abruptly, tipping over the table, glass bottles shattering from the force. Without warning he launched himself at Angel, hooking him. "I did what you fucking wanted! I took off Killbane's mask! Wasn't that fucking enough for you?" Angel tossed the Boss off him and remained on the defence as the Leader stood, breathing heavily and shaking in violent rage. "I took off that bastard's mask, he'd lost! You just had to try get one over him!"

"Hey, hey! Cool it man!" Pierce stepped him, making sure to stay out of hitting distance. "You were the one who had the choice between him and Shaundi! _You_ choose to go after Killbane and not our girl!" He got a hard blow to the jaw from his Boss. Oleg grabbed the Leader and restrained him, undeterred and unharmed by the kicks he received.

It didn't take long for the Boss to be calm enough to let go, taking his anger out on inanimate objects instead. He was furious at Angel for not being able to let it go; they'd _won_, the Syndicate was _finished_. He just was looking for someone other than himself to blame and he knew that. His Lieutenants watched him tear an already broken place apart until he suddenly stopped in his tracks.

They held their breaths as he walked slowly to the broken windows, staring out to the city. They didn't know what was going through his mind.

The Boss remember Julius. The day he confronted the former Leader. Julius asked him if he asked the Boss to walk away, would he say yes. He said no; it was _his_ city.

He's not sure if he'd have that answer now.

Julius proceeded to say that he had not learned anything.

Julius was right. He never learned how to keep his friends from dying.

He would have to live with his choices now. He would have to grit his teeth and bear the losses, keep up appearances. With the death of each of his friends, it changed him. Not enough to save them, though. It was _all his fault._

"_Did you kill that son of a bitch?"_

"_... Yeah."_

"_Was it worth it?"_

No.


End file.
